As a rule, no, but I’ll make some rare exceptions.

It has to be a small studio, I have to be pretty sure I’ll like their next game, and I have to have enjoyed their past game enough that it’s worth throwing them a few extra bucks.

For instance, I’m going to pre-order Slay the Spire 2.

• Mega Crit is an indie studio.

• I thought StS1 was exquisite, so I’m optimistic about a sequel from the same people.

• I playes StS1 for hundreds of hours, so even if the sequel is a whiff, I’d have got my money’s worth from them.

Similar goes for The Haunted Chocolatier, since I played the heck out of Stardew Valley.

It’s bad enough being one of those states now, and I’m in one of the good ones.

I really liked that Ed Helms asked a lot of very straightforward questions about Yarvin’s ideology, which just went to show that it completely falls apart if you think about it critically for even a moment. It’s not something you come to believe after listening to the best arguments from a bunch of different positions. It’s something you come to believe because it justifies your own elitism.

FUN FACT: Five Justices of the Supreme Court were appointed by presidents who were inaugurated despite losing the popular vote! That’s a full majority! And purely by coincidence, all of them are Republicans! :D

…alright, obviously it’s not fun. I can’t believe the audacity some people have to act surprised and offended when people say the Court is illegitimate.

This is a bit off topic, but it made me nostalgic. My first argument on reddit over a decade ago was with someone, either a scalper or a contrarian, trying to argue that scalpers provided a useful service that made things more fair, rather than assholes creating scarcity so they could profit selling a solution to a problem they themselves create.

So yeah, I hope they all get fucked on this one, too.

It was the response from a lot of people to COVID precautions that made me realize that a disturbing number of people are completely lacking in empathy, and don’t even understand it as a concept. They’re the people who truly did not understand why a person who isn’t at personal risk of complications would still do thinks like distance, wear a mask, or get vaccinated, because most of the benefits involve stopping the spread to others.

This is exactly the same thing. Not only do they not care about other people, they genuinely do not understand the others do.

I hate how relevant this question is in so many situations.

I do think the problem is rooted in Joss Whedon, or rather, movie studios looking at Avengers and thinking, “This, all the time.” People got tired of Joss Whedon himself (among other problems with him), much less more corporate, soulless imitations.

I just found it by chance a couple years ago, and its entered regular Halloween rotation. It’s also a very silly movie at times, but it has something to say. If it weren’t played straight, it would undercut the whole thing.

I can’t help but imagine that, if they tried to make it today, it’d just be noted to death by the studio. “Say less, quip more.” Then you’d get a ho-hum vampire action-comedy with a whiff that it was something better in a previous draft… like Renfield.

Daybreakers.

First, it’s a mid-budget movie, and Hollywood doesn’t make much of those nowadays.

Secondly, it commits to a wild premise: vampires become the dominant life form in the world. It’s fun, but the actors play it straight. If the tried to do that now, it’d be full of quips and winking at the audience rather than committing to the bit.

Somewhat off topic, but the names of both the publisher and the developer are also used by unrelated tabletop game companies. Hero Games makes the Hero System tabletop RPG, and GameScience (no space, so there’s a difference) make dice. It threw me for a loop.

Fair point. I just don’t like the move, and don’t want to support a company doing it. Even putting that aside, it really makes me worried that they’re at the point that they’re trying to ride on their reputation while increasing profit margins. It makes me think that, if I buy their newer models, they’re more likely to cheap out but charge more.

Same. I’ve been thinking of replacing the cheap immersion circulator we have, and was going to go with Anova. This blatant enshittification is enough to make me look elsewhere.

My bad then! I just saw options for a trial and a one-time purchase, didn’t realize there was a subscription.

Honestly glad to see the option. I’ll take a one-time purchase any day.

It’s a one-time purchase.

edit: It’s a one-time purchase for the “pro” version. I’ve been using the free version for a while and really enjoying it. I’ve been thinking of upgrading more to support the developers than for the added features.

From the same folks who were just calling Kamala Harris a “DEI pick.”

As an Innuendo Studios video put it, it’s “last hired, first fired.”

For sure, and it is absolutely true.

I just like “weird” because it only works one way. For people who value individuality and diversity, it doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation. For people who value conformity, it’s a devastating insult. Apparently Ben Shapiro went on Megyn Kelly’s show to cry about it, which is great.

Yeah, that’s true.

It’s just that based on prior arguments I’ve had, they’re just so agitated by thinking things through. even if you put aside the overt heinousness, they just wave away the collateral damage, dismissing them as trivial details as though the whole fucking point of policy is the effect those policies will have. It’s partly that they’re advocating for awful things, but also frustrating that they are too willfully ignorant to realize how bad their own arguments are.

If only the people who supported regressive, dumbass positions like JD Vance’s could be swayed by thinking about things for even a few fucking seconds.